Student Legal Service

If your matter falls outside our areas of expertise, the below community legal centres may be of assistance to you:

• Western Sydney Community Legal Centre
• Redfern Legal Centre
• Legal Aid NSW / LawAccess NSW
• Youth Law Australia (if under 25 years old)
• International Student Legal Service NSW (if you are an international student)
• Community Legal Centres NSW (to find your local community legal centre)

If you find that dealing with this issue has impacted your wellbeing or studies, we would encourage you to contact the below support services available to WSU students:

• Student Counselling Service
• Student Welfare Service

The Student Legal Service is unable to provide advice or representation in matters that involve or may involve a complaint against Western Sydney University, including misconduct matters. However, general information and referral options are set out below:

• WSU Student Case Coordinator - you may wish to contact the WSU Student Case Coordinator team (scc@westernsydney.edu.au), who provide advocacy, information and support to students who have received Category 2 and higher misconduct allegations, and provide further external referral if needed.
  
• External legal services
  • Youth Law Australia (if under 25 years old)
  • Western Sydney Community Legal Centre
  • International Student Legal Service NSW (if you are an international student)
  • Find your local Community Legal Centre (CLC)
  • LawAccess NSW
    
• Complaints - If you believe there has been a breach of policy or procedure or a matter involving adverse behaviour, you might like to contact the WSU Complaints Resolution Unit (CRU) (complaints@westernsydney.edu.au)
   

Other services that may be able to help further

You may also like to get in touch with the following university services who are here to support you:

• Student Welfare Service, for support and advocacy with your misconduct matter, including help to understand the allegation and how to respond
• Student Counselling Service, for professional counselling support
   

General information about student misconduct matters

Matters to consider regarding any interview are:

• You should make every effort to attend the interview as the matter will be heard and decided in your absence if you do not attend without a reasonable excuse.
• You can ask for an earlier interview date.
• Your interview will take place in private but it will be recorded.
• You are entitled to have a support person with you at your interview. You are also entitled to have an advocate or a lawyer to act for you (not an SLS lawyer) but the University may still direct you to answer their questions, and your advocate must behave reasonably and not disrupt or delay the interview.
• You may be able to have your matter dealt with as “inappropriate behaviour” under the Inappropriate Behaviour Guidelines available here, rather than “misconduct” under the Student Misconduct Rule available here.
• Before the interview, you should think about whether you admit or deny the misconduct, or admit some parts of the misconduct.
• Before the interview, you should put together any reasons or evidence you have for your conduct. You could also think about any “sanctions” (or penalties) you think might be appropriate, if you are admitting any of the misconduct.
• If you are admitting the misconduct or some parts of the misconduct, you are entitled to make an oral or written statement explaining why you acted the way you did and ask for a sanction you think is fair. You can read more about the categories of sanctions in Part E (Rules 68-76).
• You can ask witnesses to give evidence on your behalf. You will need to request permission to ask witnesses any questions.
• After your interview, the University will either: dismiss the allegation if they find it did not happen or find it is so minor that no sanction is justified, OR find that misconduct did occur and either take no further action or impose a sanction.
• The University must provide you with a report after the hearing, which includes their findings and reasons and any sanction.
• If you disagree with the University’s decision, you have the right to appeal to the Office of Governance Services within 20 days of the decision. You can see the grounds for appeals under Rule 47.
• There are rules that require you and the University to act cooperatively, fairly and reasonably (Rules 135 and 148).
  

SLS provides advice on a range of different areas of law. If your problem is not an area of law we advise on, we will try to refer you to another service.

No. SLS is a free service that is provided through your SSAF funds.

A qualified and professional solicitor from the Student Legal Service will provide you with the legal advice.

Yes. In order to receive legal advice, you must be a current student of Western Sydney University or The College.

The SLS is located within the Western Sydney University Justice Clinic on the Parramatta South campus in Building EJc.  If you would like to make an appointment to meet with a lawyer, please contact the SLS by phone or email first.

The SLS is not currently resourced to be able to represent students at court, but is able to provide referral to legal services who can.

Yes. All information provided to SLS, including advice given, will be kept confidential.